


To Be Happy

by liairene



Series: A Visitor's Guide to Highbury [23]
Category: Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Friendship, Modern Era, Small Towns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:00:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24164002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liairene/pseuds/liairene
Summary: Christopher Brandon might not be the right guy for Marianne Dashwood. Or maybe she isn't the right girl for him. But that doesn't mean that they won't both find someone who is right for them.
Relationships: Colonel Brandon/Marianne Dashwood
Series: A Visitor's Guide to Highbury [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/908481
Kudos: 23





	To Be Happy

**Author's Note:**

> In writing this series of stories, I actually split Colonel Brandon into two different characters. I really hope that you'll enjoy each of them.

“You’re going to look at the baby,” Nora said. “You don’t have to do more than that, but you are going to look at her.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re dating a man who wants to get married and have children, and if that’s not something that you want, then you need to be honest with him about that.”

Marianne’s face would only be described as petulant. “So why do I have to look at Elsa’s baby?”

Nora sighed, wondering if her sister had actually turned thirty over the summer. “Because this party is for the baby, and when you go to a party, you should acknowledge the guest of honor.”

“Fine, I’ll look at the baby. But I’m not holding her.”

Nora stopped firmly in the middle of the sidewalk and looked into her sister’s blue eyes. “Marianne, I’m sorry, but I need you to stop and think for a minute. Think about last weekend and how much time Chris spent holding babies.”

“Yeah, see, I don’t get that.”

“Mari, look at me.”

Marianne sighed dramatically. “I _like_ Chris, Nora.”

“I know that. But I also know that Chris wants to be a dad. When he left the army, he had a list of goals-get his bachelor’s and then later his doctorate, write a book, and get married.” She bit her lip and looked around. “Look, I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you this, but he and Elsa used to have an agreement.”

“An agreement?”

“Yeah, it was her idea, but they agreed that if she was still single by the time she was thirty, they’d date, get married, and have kids. I think it was going to be a weirdly platonic marriage.”

“I don’t know,” Marianne said hesitantly. “I think that if they’d ever dated they probably would have ended up falling for each other.”

“It’s all irrelevant anyway,” Nora continued. “But I’m trying to tell you that I feel like I know your boyfriend pretty well.”

“And you’re telling me that he and I want very different things.”

Nora nodded.

“Shit,” Marianne muttered. “I was hoping that the first guy I seriously dated after Grant would be the last boyfriend I ever had.”

“I’m sorry, Mare. I really am.”

“Yeah, I know. But I’m not breaking up with him today.”

* * *

Walking into the Darcy house, Marianne immediately greeted Elsa and oohed quickly over Clara. Clara Darcy was, Marianne would admit, a cute enough baby. She wasn't ugly or super red. She wasn't bald. Her hair was thick and dark and gorgeous. She wasn't a bad baby, as babies go. But she was a baby. And Marianne quickly moved to get a glass of wine and join her boyfriend. But that didn’t prove to be an escape from the world of small people as Chris was talking to Oliver Kingsleigh who was holding his eight-month-old daughter Madeleine.

“What are you two discussing?”

“Boring stuff,” Chris replied.

“Try me.”

Oliver smiled. “We’re talking about work logistics. This lucky asshole is teaching four sections of the same course while I have three different courses.”

“First of all, I’m also supervising two grad students right now,” Chris stated. “Second, you agreed to your wacky schedule. And thirdly, your schedule will be more normal winter term.”

“What happened this term?” Marianne queried.

“Because Elsa is on sabbatical for the fall semester, I agreed to teach a Studies in Fiction course that normally she would have taught. It’s been a few years since I taught a SIF course, and it takes a lot of time and energy, which is something that I had more of five years ago when I had no children.”

“See, I knew there were benefits to my way of life,” Marianne said in what she hoped was a joking tone.

Oliver shook his head. “I’m not complaining about the amount of time that my kids take. I love these three lasses, and I wouldn’t trade them for all of the time in the world. Hell, I’d gladly take more of them.”

Marianne caught something that could only be called longing in Chris’s eyes as his friend spoke, and she decided to shift the topic. “What is the course on?”

“Changing views of social class in British literature,” he replied. “It’s based around _Brideshead Revisited_.”

“Of course it is,” Chris smirked.

“Hey, it’s my favorite book.”

“I know.”

“I think my brother is in that class,” Marianne inserted.

“Yeah, he is. He’s a good student. I like having in my classes.”

“I had him last spring,” Chris added. “He’s a hard worker, and he’s got a good head on his shoulders.”

“He wants to be a teacher like Dad.” Marianne had never had the kind of definite ambitions that Nora and James had. She had a degree in art history that she’d never used. Her dad used to talk to her about making something valuable out of her life, but she’d never really wanted to do anything other than get married. She didn’t feel any desire to be a mother; she didn’t like babies or young children. But she wanted to be married, to have a partner. But at thirty, she was just working for her mother at the women’s clothing store next door to the Knit Wit and looking for something more in her life.

“He’ll be a good teacher,” Oliver replied. “He was really good with Frankie when she was living with us last winter.”

“How is she?” Marianne asked. Alice’s cousin’s daughter, Frankie Price, had lived with Alice and Oliver for several months the previous winter while her mother was being treated for cancer.

“She’s good. She and Frances are living in Meryton. Frances is healthy.”

Marianne smiled. “That’s great.”

Oliver nodded as he bounced his daughter in his arms. The baby was smiling and waving her chubby arms around. Chris reached a long finger out to her and she grabbed it, giggling. He smiled at her. “Are you a happy girl, Miss Madeleine?”

“The happiest one so far,” Oliver said. “And she’s our best sleeper.”

Marianne put her wine glass down and fished her phone out of her purse. “This is too much. I’m taking a picture for Alice.”

“And I thought you didn’t like babies,” Oliver teased.

She took the picture and texted it quickly to Alice. “Oh, I don’t like babies. They’re sticky and smelly and messy.”

After Marianne slid her phone back into her purse, she looked up at Chris’s face, and she knew that she didn’t have a boyfriend anymore. She’d never expressed her feelings about small humans quite so bluntly to Chris. She knew that he wanted to have children of his own; she’d known that before they started dating. There was nothing wrong with what either of them wanted; the problem was that she didn’t tell him what she wanted.

Oliver looked back and forth between them. “I should leave you two alone.”

“We can go outside,” Marianne said.

Chris pulled his finger out of Madeleine’s grasp and waved to the baby. Then he followed Marianne out the front porch.

“Okay, so that was something I should have talked to you about earlier,” Marianne said quickly. “I really should have talked to you about that.”

“I knew that you weren’t sure about wanting to have your own children,” Chris replied. “I didn’t realize that you don’t like children.”

“I don’t mind them when they’re older, but yeah,” she began nervously twirling a lock of her hair. “I don’t like kids. I don’t want any of my own.”

“Okay,” he said slowly.

“And I know that you really want kids. And I guess that this means there’s really no chance for things to ever work out between us. But I do want to say that I’m sorry because I should have handled this better.”

“Perhaps, but what’s done is done.”

She smiled. “Chris, you’re too nice.”

“Marianne, there are ways in which we are well suited to each other, but ultimately we don’t want the same things. We tried. It just didn’t work.”

“I should have been more honest with you about the kids thing.”

He nodded. “But now you know for the future.”

“I really hope you find someone to have a family with, Chris. You deserve that.”

“And I hope you find someone wonderful to have a great life with.”

He hugged her. They went back inside. The party wasn’t as much fun as it had been earlier, but they were both more or less fine.

* * *

That was Sunday. It was a very good day for their friend group. Saturday, their world fell apart. Saturday morning, Oliver Kingsleigh got up at six o’clock, kissed his wife, and went for a run. He collapsed in Heritage Park, a mile and a half from his house. Another runner found him and called 911. He was dead before he got to the hospital, a brain aneurysm the doctors said.

* * *

Not surprisingly The Knit Wit quickly became the gathering place for their friend group. Erik and Chris left Thomas Palmer in charge of the Green Dragon.

“So the funeral is Wednesday,” Elsa said as she put her cell phone down. “Visitation will be Tuesday night. Someone needs to go pick up his parents from the airport tonight.”

“What about his sisters?” Erik asked.

“They’re getting a rental car and staying at the Longbourn. But Mr. and Mrs. Kingsleigh don’t want to drive in the States, and they’re staying with Alice and the girls anyway.”

“Right,” Erik said. “I can get his parents then.”

Elsa wrote something down on a piece of paper. “I’ll get you the flight info. And Alice wants the Dragon to cater the luncheon.”

“Have her email me a list of what she wants and an estimate of how many people,” Chris replied. “And don’t even let her try to pay, Erik.”

“We’ll help you with the money,” Will inserted. “Funerals are expensive enough as it is. She just lost his income, and she’s got that house and the girls. We’ll help.”

“I’m going to write the obituary,” Elsa continued as she went back to the list in front of her.

“Are you sure?” her husband asked.

“Alice asked me to.”

“Let me know if I can help,” Chris offered.

“I’m going to work on it in a bit here. Also, can you babysit Clara while I teach?”

“Wait. You’re teaching again?” Erik asked.

She nodded. “Middleton called me this morning and asked me to cover Oliver’s classes for the rest of the term. He knows that it’s horrible and they shouldn’t take away my sabbatical but he asked as a professional courtesy and I want to do it for Oliver.”

“But the day care can’t take Clara until she’s at least six weeks old, and we wanted to wait until she’s twelve weeks,” Will explained. “And Mary Frances can’t do it.”

“I could just take her with me and teach with her in a carrier. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world,” Elsa mused.

“Let’s look at Oliver’s schedule together,” Chris replied. “I’ll help how I can.”

“And I’ll help too,” Annie offered. “There’s probably time when I can help.”

“And James,” Nora added. “Between all of us, we’ll make it work for the next six weeks. It’s just six weeks, right?”

“Yeah,” Chris agreed. “And Oliver was only on campus four days a week.”

“We’ll make it work,” Elsa said blandly. “We have to, for Oliver.”

* * *

On Monday, Chris taught his first class, watched Clara, taught his second class, held office hours, and then watched Clara again. “She just slept,” he told Elsa when she came to pick her daughter up.

“My greatest fear is when we have to try to give her a bottle,” she confessed.

“Tomorrow, I’m watching her in the morning,” he replied. “Who has her in the afternoon?”

“James,” she told him. “And I don’t want him giving my baby a bottle for the first time. It’ll traumatize him.”

“Could one of your sisters watch her for you?”

“Cam has class, and Lily is working. And I’m not sure that I want to do that to Lily anyway.”

He thought for a moment. “What about Katy?”

Elsa snorted. “If James has to be the first person to give Clara a bottle, he’ll be traumatized, but if it’s Katy, they’ll both be traumatized for life.”

“You could just take her to class with you.”

“It’s really tempting,” Elsa replied.

“So do it,” Chris said. “And if anyone complains, they can talk to me.”

* * *

Tuesday morning, Elsa fed Clara right before heading to teach her first class of the day, and Chris had an easy hour and a half with a sleeping baby in his office. Then she held her first office hours, most of which was just students coming to talk to her about Oliver rather than course work itself. She ate lunch with one of the grad students he was mentoring. She sorted through some of Oliver’s things. She fed Clara again and left her with James Dashwood. “If she starts fussing, just bring her to me.”

“I can give her a bottle,” the cheerful twenty-one-year-old offered.

“She’s never taken a bottle before, and I’m not sure that I want you to have to be the first one to try it. There is a bottle in her bag, but don’t feel like you have to try it.”

He shrugged. “We’ll see how it goes.”

* * *

When she came back to her office about an hour and a half later, he was calmly sitting at her desk holding Clara. “Did she wake up?”

“No, I just like holding her.”

Elsa smiled. “You and Chris both; you just like holding a sleeping baby.”

“She’s warm and snuggly,” he replied. “And she smells good.”

“Well, I’m going to take the warm good-smelling bundle to check on things at the KW and then get ready for the evening.”

“I guess I’ll see you at the funeral home then?”

Elsa nodded. “This has to be bringing up bad memories for you, James.”

He shrugged. “At least I got eighteen years with my dad, and we knew it coming so I got to say good-bye to him. Madeleine will never remember him. Charlotte might or might not. Josie will, but it won’t be the same. It sucks, Elsa.”

She nodded. “Yeah, it really does.”

* * *

Marianne Dashwood didn’t like funerals. As a young child she’d gone to the funerals of a few elderly relatives and had come to hate the smell of lilies. She’d apparently gone to Catherine and Leo Woodhouse’s funeral when she was six, but she didn’t remember that. And she counted her dad’s funeral three years earlier as the worst day of her life. She told herself that since she was taking the day off work to go to Oliver’s funeral she didn’t need to go to the visitation. She hadn’t been very close to Oliver anyway; she was more going for Alice and Nora. (Also she knew that Chris had been very close to Oliver, and she didn’t want to spend more time than she had to around him right now.)

* * *

Nora wasn’t surprised that her sister didn’t go to the visitation. She was also fairly sure that Alice hadn’t noticed. The whole evening was painfully sad. Alice was obviously trying not to cry. Oliver’s mother was crying, and her husband seemed unsure of what to do. Madeleine, blissfully unaware of what was happening, was happy to be passed around from person to person. Charlotte kept asking where her daddy was until her godfather collected her and took her to the “Family Resting Room” to read and play until it was time for her to home. Josie had seen the casket and had even more questions, which led her godfather to take her to join Will and Charlotte in the resting room.

The look on Will’s face when George entered the room was the opposite of surprised. “How’s it going?”

Josie climbed on a couch next to Will who was reading to Charlotte. “Uncle Will, Mommy said that my daddy went to heaven. But he’s in that box there. Why is that?”

“Well, Josie,” he began.

“Is the box going to take him to heaven? And why is he going to heaven? Why won’t he stay here with us?”

Chris stuck his head into the room just then. “Hey, they started the rosary out there. Alice gave me her keys and asked if we’d take the girls home.”

“How is she getting home?” Will asked.

“Emma will take her home and then take George home. I’m going to follow the van in my car so I can get Will home.”

“Do we need all three of us to go over there?” George asked. “I’m just thinking that we need one person to put Madeleine to put and one to handle these two.”

“I agree,” Will said. “What if George takes the van and puts Josie and Lottie to bed and Chris follows and then handles Madeleine? And I’ll just see you all tomorrow?”

“It sounds like you’re trying to get out of something,” George teased.

“Yes, I’m trying to get out of a very complicated bedtime. I’ve already got one of those at home.”

“Fair,” Chris assented.

“It does make sense,” George agreed. “Chris, you’ve got Madeleine?”

“This kid on my hip is Madeleine, right?”

“Where are their coats?”

* * *

The funeral the next day was about as hard as the evening before. The girls were relatively calm and quiet for the Mass itself, and they scattered themselves back to their surrogate aunts and uncles during the luncheon like they had at the visitation. Madeleine seemed to want only her mother while Josie clung to George and Charlotte to Chris.

“George said that Lottie would not go to sleep last night until Chris sat by her bed,” Emma told Elsa.

“She adored Oliver,” Elsa said.

“But why Chris specifically?” Emma asked.

“The hair, maybe?” Elsa said. “George has dark hair, but it’s not dark in the same way that Oliver’s was, if that makes sense?”

“But Chris’s hair is basically black like Oliver’s?”

Elsa shrugged. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Marianne slumped into the chair next to Emma. “I hate funerals.”

“So go home,” Emma replied. “You were at the Mass. You ate lunch. You can go now.”

Marianne sighed. “I can’t just go.”

“Do you want to be here?”

“Oh hell no.”

“Then go,” Emma replied simply, but then her tone and gaze turned darker. “And don’t try to tell me that it’s because your dad died when you were in your late twenties and that’s hard for you. My mom and little brother died when I was eight, and I’m here for Alice and these girls until the bitter end.”

“I’m not you, Emma.”

“I know. If you were, you never would have fucked with Chris.”

“He said that we’re fine.”

Emma scowled. “You and Chris might be. You and I are not.”

Marianne started. “Em, we’re friends.”

“Mare,” Elsa inserted. “Go home. At this point, so many people have left. You can go.”

“Are you sure?”

“Look around,” Emma replied bitterly.

The church basement was actually mostly empty. Erik was talking to his employees about the leftover food, and Alice, with Madeleine on her hip, was listening or advising. Alice’s family was still awkwardly lurking. Oliver’s family had gone back to the hotel a little earlier. A few people were talking. Chris Brandon was sitting in a chair with Charlotte Kingsleigh on his lap. “I can’t believe Chris,” Marianne muttered.

“What do you mean?” Emma asked.

“He’s just sitting there with the kid on his lap while Erik works.”

Emma shook her head. “No, he’s just letting Lottie sleep. Lottie hasn't been sleeping well, but for some reason, she will for him. Look at him. That can’t be comfortable. But he’s doing it because it means that she’s asleep.”

Chris Brandon was a long slender man, and he did not look comfortable in a folding chair with a three-year-old sleeping on his lap. But he just stayed in the chair with his long legs stretched out and rubbed the little girl’s back while quietly talking to Will Darcy.

Marianne stood up. “This might sound strange, but I would have ruined his life if we’d kept dating.”

Emma looked over at Chris. “Yeah, you would have. That man was put on earth to be a dad.”

“Do you think that Alice will ever remarry?”

Elsa raised her eyebrows. “I think that it’s a bit early to be discussing that.”

“I know that it’s the wrong day and probably the wrong place.”

“Definitely the wrong place,” Emma interjected.

“But I thought that my mom would never date again after my dad died, and now she’s dating Mr. Reynolds. So I’m thinking that maybe someday something like that will happen for Alice.”

Emma gave her a quizzical look. “Maybe someday a sixty-year-old divorced dad of four will want to marry her?”

“You know what I mean,” Marianne protested.

Elsa sighed. “I do. But she just buried her husband today. I don’t think that she’s anywhere near ready to start thinking about dating anyone else.”

“Yeah, well, I guess that I should go home. Right?”

“Go for it,” Emma replied.

“Well, I’ll see you later.”

* * *

Before she left, Marianne walked over to Chris and Will. “Hey, Chris?”

He looked up at her, still rubbing sleeping Charlotte’s back. “Hey, Marianne, what’s up?”

“I just wanted to say first that I’m really sorry about Oliver.”

“Thanks,” he replied.

“And I was updating my online dating profile last night, and I made sure to put that I don’t want kids and I’m only looking for someone else who is child free by choice.”

He nodded and smiled slightly. “That’s good. I hope that works out.”

“I think it will.”

Charlotte shifted in his lap, and he turned his attention to the sleeping child. “How long is she going to sleep?”

“How long has it been?” Will asked.

“At least an hour.”

“Damn.”

“I mean, I don’t know how much she slept last night. It was after ten when she fell asleep, and I don't know when she woke up.”

Marianne shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. “Well, I guess I’m going now. I’ll see you two around.”

“See you later,” Chris said without looking up from Charlotte.

* * *

Marianne’s life changed positively in the weeks that followed. She was offered and accepted a job working as a sales rep for one of Audrey’s Closet’s suppliers. She moved to Chicago. In January, she met a guy named Brandon Coronelle. She initially met him online, but they hit it off almost immediately. He was graphic designer and a couple of years older than her. He was also widowed, a fact that Marianne found oddly endearing. He had married his college girlfriend, Ella, at twenty-three and she’d died unexpectedly two years later.

“And then I didn’t want anyone else for a long time,” he told Marianne. “I had loved Ella so much that I didn’t see the point in trying to love anyone else.”

“But now?”

“I don’t want to be alone forever. I don’t want to live in the past anymore. I want to live in the now.”

He also didn’t want to have children. “Kids are cute. My brother has kids. They’re not awful. But I’ve never felt like I needed to procreate to feel like my life has been of value. I could have a pet, but kids, I’m not built for kids.”

“Oh me neither,” Marianne agreed. “My sister is a children’s librarian, and also I’m pretty sure that she and her boyfriend are going to have like five kids together. And I’m just like no thank you. I don’t like kids, and kids don’t like me. I’m not maternal at all.”

Brandon smiled. “So no kids, but what do you want out of life?”

“Adventure,” she replied. “And romance, I want to have an amazing romance.”

“Travel?”

She shrugged. “I want to build a life that’s all my own but with a good partner at my side. I spent eight years dating a guy who used me when it was convenient to him, and if it wasn’t convenient, I didn’t exist to him. Then I spent six months dating a really great guy who is going to make some lucky woman a really great husband, but at the end of the day, he and I want very different things out of life.”

“So now you want someone who is a really great guy and wants the same things that you want?”

She grinned. “That’s exactly what I want.”

“What did this great guy want that you don’t?”

“He wants to have children. And here’s the thing. If he doesn’t become a dad, it will be a crime. He’s a natural with children. I so don’t like kids, but watching him with kids was beautiful because you got to see the truest part of him.”

“What brings out the truest part of you?”

Marianne pressed her lips together and thought for a moment. “I like being with people who I love. I like social events and talking with other people. That’s why I liked working in my mom’s store. I got to be social and encourage people.”

“And now you’re a sales rep?”

“Yeah, I try to get stores like my mom’s to carry our clothes.”

“And that makes you happy?”

She nodded. “I like pretty clothes, and I like helping other people to find pretty clothes. I’m not saving the world, but I think it’s a good job.”

* * *

The first time that Marianne introduced Brandon to all of her Highbury friends was the following October at her older sister’s wedding. She was a little nervous about bringing her new(ish) boyfriend to an event where her most recent ex-boyfriend was a groomsman. Sure, she’d been dating Brandon longer than she’d dated Chris, but she was still nervous.

In the end, she shouldn’t have worried. Chris was friendly but didn’t interact much with her or Brandon at all. And he didn’t seem sad or lonely. He was busy helping Alice with her daughters. “Does that mean anything?” Marianne asked Elsa.

Elsa looked at Chris who was walking around the restaurant holding twenty-month-old Madeleine’s hand. “I don’t think so. I don’t think that Alice is ready for it mean anything more than Chris is good with kids and her girls like him.”

“I feel like they’d be good together.”

“Her husband hasn’t been gone for a year yet. I don’t know if she’s ready to think about that.”

“Well, when she is, I think they’d be a good match.”

Elsa looked at Marianne. “Are you trying to match-make out of guilt because you have a boyfriend and he’s still single?”

Marianne smiled and shook her head. “I do want him to be happy. But I don’t feel guilty about him. I just don’t want him to be lonely.”

“He’ll be alright, Marianne,” Elsa told her.

“Are you sure? I don’t want him to be alone.”

“He isn’t alone; he’s single. He has friends. He has a good support group.”

“But I feel bad that he’s single when everyone around him isn’t.” She paused before continuing. “And that’s not the same thing as feeling guilty.”

Elsa chuckled “Okay, Mare.”

* * *

At the reception the following evening, Marianne was dancing with Brandon when she saw Chris lead Alice out onto the dance floor. She shook her head and smiled.

Brandon looked at her. “What is it?”

She nodded her head towards Chris and Alice. “Those two.”

“Your ex has a new girlfriend?”

“No, at least not now, but I think that those two could be good together.”

Brandon twirled her before speaking again. “So you’re into matchmaking?”

“Actually, I’m usually very opposed to it. At our dad’s funeral, my brother tried to set Nora up with George. I think he tried to set her up with Chris once too. Matchmaking for other people is bad business.”

“So what is it about those two?”

She pursed her lips and thought for a moment. “They’ve both been through some rough stuff in life, and I think that they’d be good together.”

“Isn’t that matchmaking?”

“No, I’m just making an observation, and I’m not going to do anything about it.”

Brandon nodded. “Oh, I see.”

* * *

Marianne felt both delight and an odd sense of relief when her sister told her in January that Chris Brandon and Alice Kingsleigh were dating. She was in Paris with Brandon in June when Nora texted her to say that Chris and Alice were engaged. A few days later, after a candlelit dinner, Brandon asked Marianne to marry him while strolling along the Seine.

Chris and Alice had a small ceremony in December while Marianne and Brandon had a destination wedding in Mexico on Valentine’s Day. Marianne asked Nora if she should invite Chris and Alice, and Nora shook her head. “You got what you wanted, and he got he wanted. He’s happy, Mare. You don’t have to keep checking in on him.”

And when Marianne kissed her newly-minted husband, Brandon Coronelle, at sunset on a Mexican beach, she knew that she was, in fact, very happy, and she had, at long last, gotten exactly what she wanted.

* * *


End file.
